4sight: Week 5 12/11/20

Throwback Thursday: Understanding the potential impact of Lockdown 2.0

£31m of health savings was generated through visits to leisure venues across the UK in November 2019, evidencing the wider impact of the leisure sector.

A look back in time

Using data from over 1,200 leisure venues, it is estimated that in November 2019 there was over 39 million visits to facilities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, generating over £31m of health savings.

With parts of the UK leisure sector closed for much of November 2020, we have looked back in the archives to understand the wider positive impact that gyms, leisure centres and studios had in 2019, before the world was turned on its head by COVID-19. We used data from the DataHub (www.datahubclub.com), to analyse the largest sample size available in the industry today and extrapolate figures to cover all leisure provision in the UK.

As part of the £31m of health savings, there was an estimated £12.2m of savings from reduced dementia treatment, as well as £3.3m of savings associated with Type 2 diabetes. On the mental health side, over £830k was saved as a result of reduced treatment costs for depression.

Health saving figures, estimated using the DataHub’s Social Value Calculator and driven by Experian lifestyle data and academic research from Sheffield Hallam University, use data related to participant profiles and exercise type and frequency. Research, commissioned by both DCMS and more recently Sport England, has proven that exercise reduces the risk of a range of specific health issues, with monetary figures illustrating the amount of savings that this generates, through reduced healthcare costs.

What could have been?

These figures point to some of the savings that may have been lost as a result of Lockdown 2.0, however the following should be noted:

  • 2019 figures related to the whole of the UK, however facilities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been closed for differing periods in 2020
  • We know that to some extent; people have replaced traditional leisure centre visits with their own personal activity and training. This is likely to offset a proportion of the lost social value that is can be tracked in facilities.

Over the following weeks, we will be looking in greater detail at the estimated impact of Lockdown 2.0 across various parts of the UK, including the people likely to be most affected and long-term implications on the sector.

For further information or to enquire about 4GLOBAL’s insight services, including COVID19 Business Recovery Modelling, please contact enquiries@4global.com.